Early Saturday morning, nearly 125 women arrived at Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva to pick up their registration packet for our annual women's ministry retreat. It took more than two hours to get everyone through the line, give general instructions and find our small groups
We boarded the buses with our small group. (Thankfully, a team of able-bodied men loaded all of the suitcases!) Once on the bus the "crazy" began. Unlike in the states, no one stays in their seats--instead the bus leaders formed two teams (left side and right side) and challenged the teams to decorate their side of the bus, with the crepe paper, balloons, stickers and tape they handed out. No one seated during that time--and yes, the bus is driving through the city.
The decorating contest was just the first of three challenges; the second was making up new actions to a children's song about Jonah and the third was making up words/phrases with the letters they passed out to us. The best part is that the two-hour trip seemed to fly by.
We arrived at Entre Pinos Resort about 11:30 a.m. and trekked up the hill to the conference center. The same able-bodied men mentioned earlier, unloaded all the luggage and delivered it to the rooms.
We sat with our groups and the music team lead us in a sweet time of worship, introducing the theme song, Oceans, by Hillsong. You can find a video of this amazing song, by clicking here.
Unlike previous years, there wasn't any whole-group teaching. All four of the teaching times, each one focusing on one of the four chapters of the book of Jonah, were done within our small group. (Earlier in the month, 40+ group leaders were trained by the women's ministry team.) At the retreat there were 27 groups, each with a leader and 3-5 women. This allowed plenty of time to learn, discuss and share our insights and struggles.
On Wednesday I started helping the sixth graders at New Life Christian School prepare for the spelling bee. They just received a copy of the sixth grade words so that's where we started. The word lists include three levels of difficulty, and, as I'm sure I mentioned last year, sixth graders in the states would find many of the average and most of the difficult words very challenging. For New Life kids, these words are in their second language so that makes them even harder.
I found an online spelling program that allowed me to build word lists for a class and provided an individual login for my students. The best part is that the program pronounces and uses each word in a sentence. Since we have access to the small computer lab, each student can login and complete their own practice. It is a great way to maximize our time. Even better, the students with computers can access the program at home.
On Fridays school is dismissed at 12:30. My seven kids brought their lunch and then we worked from 1:00 to 3:30. We mixed things up a bit with some computer work, then had a traditional spelling bee, then had a lightning round with the easiest words. If they missed them, they had to go write the word 10 times before they could come rejoin the round.
We don't meet again until Wednesday so, hopefully, they will find time to study the rest of the 6th grade words so we can start on the 7th grade words on Thursday. We have 11 more practices until the spelling bee on Tuesday, April 29.
